Good Things And Green Drinks
by dream vs nightmare
Summary: James' breath hitches in his throat at the contact, and Henry's gaze moves from the set of his lips to the brown of his eyes in an instant. "Is this still what you want?" Worry seeps into his voice like the way his blood had seeped onto James' hands. He thinks he can taste it in his mouth, now. But there is no blood, he's not bleeding, and yet the taste is there.


Or, the Forever fic that came straight outta Nightvale. Otherwise known as the strangely supernatural prequel to Before There Was You.

Inspired by a tumblr ask from kythe42: "Forever feels like home, sitting all alone inside your head" and a Forever Gothic ficlet from argylepirateWD.

I meant for this to be mysterious and kinda fluffy but then it turned into...whatever this is.

* * *

"Think it's quite time we give the game away, now?" James asks in a low voice, leaning so close that his breath ghosts across Henry's face. How long has Henry wanted this, wanted him? He doesn't know, can't recall, but it doesn't matter because he knows he'll leave. Good things always leave, and James is a good thing. James is one of the best things. He is so good to others, to him, that he sometimes wonders if he is an imagined man that lives only in Henry's mind, a ghost only he can see.

The pads of James' fingertips are soon to follow his breath, digits skimming over the line of Henry's jaw and quieting any and all thought in his head. They make their slow descent down his neck when no one's looking, pausing over the place where a knife wound should be but isn't. It isn't, but it was. It isn't, and it's impossible.

But Henry shivers at the contact all the same, daring to lean into it, into James, as strangers look to them through the smoke hanging in the air. There's always smoke, here, and it's unlike the blue-gray tendrils that ghosts from gentleman's cigarettes and the fog-like stuff that lifts and bubbles out of every green drink served at the bar. He doesn't know where the smoke comes from, but it hangs heavy and thick in the air around them. And sometimes, sometimes he dares wonder if it's to give men like him, like James, some kind of out. Even if that's what all the smoke is for, even if that's it's sole purpose, Henry doesn't care to hide. Not this, not James, because James is a good thing.

"If you'd like, yes." Comes his answer, then. It's the only thing he can think to say with alcohol singing in his blood and thoughts melting into a sticky, syrupy mess.

"I know things have…changed between us recently." He dares add, alluding to all James had sen the night before. He doesn't deny a damed thing, in that moment - not the knife that'd glistened gold under the street lamps, not the stab wound that'd brought him to his knees, not even the blood that'd spilled out of the jagged cut and onto James' shaking, shaking hands. And that's how he knows he's in love with him, loves him with all he is. Because he's always run from the truth before. But he's not going anywhere, now.

"And you can tell me, y'know." James says around an easy smile. Everything's always so damned _easy_ with him, though the fingertips that ghost down Henry's neck seem to tremble, if only just. Maybe James' ease is all smoke and mirrors, just as Henry's cool-calm is a front, a mask he wears for the world. Maybe one day they can leave the magician to his tricks and the masquerade to her ball, maybe one day they can start over again. But somehow, he doesn't think today is that day.

A long moment passes, and then another, with neither moving to dispel the quiet that seems to have fallen over them. Henry cannot speak, thoughts slow to form into words and words falling away from him every time he tries. In the space between one thundering beat of his heart and the next, he dares looks to James through his glass. It could be five seconds before his best friend speaks once more. It could be five hours. He doesn't know, can't tell time in this room filled with lingering smoke and dancing couples and the ghost of band music. There's always music, but never anyone playing it. Never, and he knows it should frighten him, but it doesn't. It doesn't and it damn well should. He'd dared take one of the green drinks this time, though he knew he shouldn't have. He feels dizzy and weak and impossibly light, new. There's nothing to be be done about it now, he supposes.

"I will, if you'll still have it." There's nothing to be done about the implication in that sentence, nothing to be done about the soft, subtle _if you'll still have me. He_ thinks he ends up saying that, too, voice soft as falling snow and low as ocean tides.

He knows not how long he waits for James' answer, but it feels like forever. And as he looks to James through his near empty drinking glass, he can't help but think that forever feels like home. James feels like home. He is a good thing, one of the best things, and if he doesn't lose him to the first impossible truth of his life, then he's sure he'll lose him to the second.

Because Henry's that kind of man. And maybe James isn't, maybe James never was. Oh Gods, what if he isn't? What if he isn't and Henry'd been responding to his attention all the wrong way? What if all those easy brushes of hands and lingering touches on the arm, the neck, were all for something else? Could it have been? And all those shared looks as they'd sat by the river, dappled sunlight playing across James' face as his eyes flit from brown to burgundy...he doesn't know what to make of it all, because maybe all of it's not what he'd thought.

But as James' gaze meets Henry's gaze and looks into his eyes with a smolder that burns through the smoke in the air and the alcohol in his glass and memories of blood (there'd been so much blood, always so much blood, but more than before), Henry dares hope that maybe, just maybe, it is what he'd thought. That James really is that kind of man, too. Or that he'll make an exception. They could be a good exception. They could be the best exception.

And Henry doesn't know quite when he fell in love with James Carter, doesn't know when he allowed himself to be vulnerable, to be open, to feel again, but it doesn't matter because he is irrevocably, unchanging his. After Nora, he'd sworn his heart to no one and nothing but science, but medicine, and told himself he was content with that lonely ambition. But then he'd met James. Then he'd met James and everything was different.

"Well come on, then." James murmurs in a voice so low and warm, only Henry can hear. But it's not as though anyone else is listening - for all their mates have come and gone long ago, taking leave of the dance hall early so as to walk pretty dames home. Even the bartenders pay them no mind, gaze unseeing and empty as they refill glass after glass with green drink. It's always green, no other color. And he knows that should scare him, too. But it doesn't - not much can, anymore.

Despite no one listening in, James sees it to that their conversation stays private, his lips brushing and lingering at the shell of Henry's ear as he says, "I'll walk you home."

"Is that what this is?" Henry ventures around a crooked smile when James' pulls away a moment later.

"That's what this is, old friend." James murmurs in reply, an arm slung about his shoulders as always. Always, as if to steady him as they move up and out of the booth. But Henry thinks he knows what it's really for, tonight, and hopes, hopes, hopes that he isn't wrong. He's been wrong about a lot of things in his long, long life - but he doesn't want to be wrong about this. Because it's the only thing in this whole place, in this whole city, that feels right.

* * *

The first kiss is all lips and meeting stubble and soft, soft smiles. Henry has to stifle a laugh against James' lips when he murmurs, "I'm sorry, I just- I've no idea what to do with my hands, Henry."

They laugh, then, standing close enough that the sound echoes off the hard brick of the dance hall and near drowns out the sound of sirens wailing long into the night. But he can still hear them, just above the last of James' low, lingering laughter. He doesn't know where they come from or where they're going, but he knows it best not to think about. Their breathing mingles and swirls together as James stands close in the circle of Henry's arms, closer than what either's allowed in a long, long time. He doesn't know how he knows that about James, but he does. That's also best not to think about.

With a whispered, "May I?" on Henry's part and a breathy, "yes, yes, of course" on James', he moves to ease the doctor up against the hard, wet brick of the dance hall and shows him what to do with his hands. His breath hitches in his throat at the contact, and Henry's gaze moves from the set of his lips to the brown of his eyes in an instant.

"Is this still what you want?" Worry seeps into his voice like the way his blood had seeped onto James' hands. He thinks he can taste it in his mouth, now. But there is no blood, he's not bleeding, and yet the taste is there, thick and heavy on the tip of his tongue. He'd died just the night before, and he reasons that that's why he's thinking of blood. The taste, though - he shouldn't be able to taste it.

"Because I want to be certain." He wants to be certain about a lot of things, wishes and wants and aches to to be.

"Yes, Henry." James says around a smile of his own as he moves to cup the stubbled skin of his cheek. And his mind goes blissfully, suddenly silent, then - the simple touch of his hand banishing all thoughts of blood and escape and cold, lingering fear away.

He thinks passerby would give them strange looks, or hurl harsh, slurred insults at them - but there are no passerby. They are alone, and the wail of the sirens soon fade and fall away into the depths of the midnight hour. But he knows they're still there, just like the blood. Always, still there, if he could just figure out how and why...

* * *

The second kiss is easier, sweeter. It tastes not of blood.

The third is slower, lazy, makes him think of sun-warmed honey. Still, there is no blood.

The fourth makes his head spin. It's all wandering hands and breath and the sudden, crushing feel of James' lips on his own. There is no thought, after that.

* * *

Later, tucked away into Henry's apartment and safe from the blood and the sirens and the smoke and the strangers, they find, the rest isn't quite so different at all. And he discovers that he can trust James with all manner of secrets - those of his heart and his damned immortal soul. Perhaps he should be afraid of the strange wine-dark glow in James' eyes when he steps into the eerie blue light of the moon. Perhaps he should be afraid of the sharp press of his canines against his tongue when they kiss. Canines shouldn't be that long, that sharp.

Some deep and buried part of him knows well he should be afraid of James like he should be of everything else in this city, but he is not because he loves him. There is no blood, not yet, but he can taste it. And he loves him.

* * *

Vampire!James x ImmortalDoctor!Henry 5ever.


End file.
